Carry Your Happiness Forward

“Gary, there are a lot of elements in my life that I am very happy with right now, so I don’t know that creating a plan for the future requires me to do anything. After all, I already have a lot of what I want in my life now.”, a program participant said to me.

“Do you want to continue to have what you are happy with now in the future?” I asked.

“Yes”, came the response.

“Did you have to do things to create the current level of satisfaction that you have in your life.” I inquired.

“Absolutely!”

“Okay. So wouldn’t it make sense that if you wanted to create a future that included many elements of your current life then you more likely to create that future by consciously putting strategies into action? This would ensure that you maintained those elements, rather than leaving them to chance.” I followed.

“Yes, there is no doubt that I would be more likely to carry forward the elements of my life that I am happy with by consciously putting strategies into action to create that future. I can see that even though much of the future I desire is that same as I have now, I still need to be conscious in my efforts to continue to create that future.

“Spot on!” I responded.

This brief conversation highlights a misconception that many people have about creating the future they desire. Irrespective of whether you have current elements of your life with which you are happy, if you want to continue to have those elements in your life having conscious strategies that you can put into action will significantly increase the probability that those elements will continue to stay in your life. This is how you can carry your happiness forward.

Otherwise you are leaving it to chance. If you have elements in your life that you are happy with, why would you want to leave them to chance. Take relationships, for example. Lots of people are happy with their relationships but don’t consciously put strategies into action to maintain and build on the strength of those relationships. Eventually, something goes wrong and the relationship breaks down even though the people involved never imagined that could happen. In many cases people will blame the other person for having ‘changed’. Yet they could have planned to change together and/or plan to be able to sustain individual changes.

What are the elements in your life that you are currently happy with?

How are you planning to keep those elements in your life?

Gary Ryan facilitates the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program which has now had over 5,500 people complete variations of the program.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com